The Artist and the Apocalypse
by kireiotakugirl
Summary: "See you around, killer." It sent chills down her spine to hear. When she was alone, when she had said these things to herself, acknowledged that she was a killer, it sickened her. If anyone else had said this to her, she would have been absolutely horrified, ashamed. So why did she had to feel so damn flattered when he said it?
1. Accidentally Flattery

She'd always been attracted to artists. Before Nate, before the idea of a strong and stoic soldier pervaded her dreams, the tortured artist was what she wanted. She'd dated one her first year of college, and he'd left quite an impression. Something about the dichotomy of a man who was clean-cut in so many respects, someone who was calm and composed to turn towards the canvas and lose any and all pretense of that composure, to attack their work with a mania, with the most deep-set desire to birth their work, their vision. To watch as masculine hands, long, large instruments do the most delicate and bold of works, to unravel the mysteries of their mind and their subjects and translate and transform them so utterly...Yes, she'd always been drawn to artists. She herself had no particular talents when it came to the mediums of paint or sketching, but before the war she had always been an ardent admirer. Her talents lay in dance, in song, in the movement and workings of the body, the constant undulations of the tempo and the melody, the sobbing moans of the orchestra and the chorus drawing out the perfection of movement. Now, in this life, this wasteland, there was little need for fine shoes and clothes, for practiced steps or minuets. This life required the dance of survival, and if it contained any grace, it was purely by accident.

Perhaps that is why she was so instantly taken in by him.

Nora had been out in the Commonwealth for six months, before Hancock sent her out to explore the gallery. The previous weeks had seen her clearing a large swath of territory close by, so there was little resistance until she reached the front door. She managed to sneak up on them at first, listen to their conversations. They were afraid of this place. Then they changed the subject to their last big haul, talking about raiding a community of helpless settlers while laughing and passing around the Jet, and she started cutting throats.

Nora entered the red door, low to the ground as it shut with barely a noise. There were more raiders in the old house, all talking about Pickman. Hancock hadn't mentioned that Pickman was a living person, and she assumed it had just been an old building. They talked about him like he was a monster from a book, and then they noticed her presence, and the fight began.

After the gunfire ceased, Nora stopped to look around, to see the artist's work without interruptions. Listening to a message to Jack, hearing the artist's serene voice as he cut people to pieces, she should have been horrified. She should have left the building. She knew what this place was, and that's all Hancock had wanted. She could go home and warn everyone away from this building. Instead Nora went through the very obviously ominous hole in the wall, crawling through the lower levels and the cellars, fighting raiders and disarming turrets. She was bruised and bloody by the time she reached the raider called Slab, and without thinking she jumped down onto his back, stabbing her knife into his neck, blood spraying on her face, in her mouth. The others were handled quickly, and then it was just Nora and the well dress predator.

Suddenly Nora realized how very stupid she'd been. What had possessed her to run through that building and kill so recklessly? The raider's blood was drying on her face, pulling the skin tight like the face masks women used before the war, and it took every ounce of willpower not to claw at it. She was filthy, disheveled, a large gash on her left shoulder leaking blood down her arm, onto her hands, squelching between her fingers. It was from early on, the first raider she'd fought upon entering the gallery, and she was surprised that it hadn't slowed or stopped. Then she started studying Pickman, and she forgot the sting in her shoulder, the ache in her limbs. Everything about Pickman was the antithesis of her at that moment. Clean, well groomed, not a hair out of place nor a drop of blood on his well tended clothes. His expression was mild, almost kind, certainly bemused as to why she helped him.

"That was close. Thank you." His voice was smooth, not rough like the habitual drinkers, smokers, and chem users that populated the Commonwealth, and when he smiled, he had devastatingly straight, white teeth. "Those people deserved worse than death." She should have felt afraid, should have run out of the place screaming, but instead she was rooted to the spot, staring until she felt his gaze heavy on her, and she remembered herself.

"W-Why did they want you so badly?" Nora mumbled, inwardly kicking herself for sounding so ridiculous. She'd always been so self assured, never one to stammer in speech, but Pickman didn't seem to notice.

"They objected to my hobby of collecting their heads. They wanted to extract their pound of flesh. Don't worry, killer. I'll collect mine again soon." The way he talked, he might as well have been describing the weather. He took in the blood on her face, on her arms, the little puddle where she spat it out, "Allow me to repay you." Nora was quick to protest.

"Please, I-I'd have done it either way. Raiders...they do deserve worse than death." Nora was unsure why those words fell from her lips, why she made sure her words held a sentiment of approval for his actions. To distract herself from this, she traced the curves of his face, the dark shadow of a beard on his chin, his high cheekbones and clear pale eyes. Were they blue? In this lighting she couldn't tell, but she felt desperate to find out. Why? Why was she being so ridiculous? If she'd had the wherewithal to think coherently, she'd have blamed the blood loss, would have blamed the bizarre nature of the day, blamed anything.

Her attention was drawn to his hands, beautiful, long and slender, the delicate instruments of an artist. In one he held a key which he quickly tossed in her direction. "When you return to the house above, look deep into my painting called "A Picnic for Stanley", and there you may claim your reward." Then he smiled, and turned to walk down one of the ruined tunnels. "See you around, killer."

She turned and left the place as quickly as she could, suddenly thankful for the blood that stained her skin because it hid all sign of the bizarre blush which spread across her cheeks. After breaching the cool night air on the surface, she made her way back around, entered the building again, and found the painting. Grisly work, just like the rest, but it did reveal a talent that most of the Commonwealth would not have been able to appreciate. Gently settling it against the wall and applying the key to the safe, she found Pickman's gift: a devastatingly sharp blade with a black handle still warm from being clutched in his hand. Underneath was a note, simple as it was, smeared with gore in the shape of a heart.

 _Thanks, killer._

It made her cringe just to hold it in her hands, to feel the red still sticky and smelling strongly of iron, but she pocketed it all the same. Part of her was screaming to leave, her protesting, throbbing limbs, her aching feet, but she shifted restlessly before removing a canister of water from her pack and cleaning her hands. She shook droplets off her fingers before walking through the gallery, studying each macabre piece of artwork, even reaching out a hesitant hand to one, feeling the brushstrokes on her fingertips before snatching it back abruptly. With a shaky sigh Nora turned and left the gallery, her feet beating a quick path back to Goodneighbor, a path that was blessedly free of raiders and super mutants. She didn't think about the pain in her shoulder or the stains on her armor. She didn't try deciding who best would be able to stitch up her wounds. No, she was too busy deriding herself for what really and truly lingered in her mind. Pickman had called her a killer. It sent chills down her spine to hear it. When she was alone, when she said these things to herself, acknowledged that she was a killer, it sickened her. If anyone else had said this to her, she would have been absolutely horrified, ashamed. So why, when an artistic serial killer said these thing, did it feel like such a compliment?


	2. Calling Cards In the Rain

It was months later before she found herself back in that part of old Boston. After her initial encounter with Pickman, Nora found herself avoiding the gallery at all costs for fear of seeing him again. She'd been stomping around the city with Hancock, righting wrongs and killing what needed killing, sneaking her ghoulish, chem-addled friend into Diamond City for the noodles, chasing down Deathclaw nests, and answering every distress beacon that played across her Pip-boy. The two of them had even built a teleport array out in Sanctuary. She'd found her son, found the old man who led the Institute. He was safe, he was content, and he had no real need for her. Oh, he'd asked her to join the cause, to make humanity better than it was by giving up on the surface, but how could she? The synths and ghouls she knew, they weren't defects, they weren't mutants, not to her. They were dear to her, dearer than her own flesh and blood, it seemed, because she kissed Shaun's withered cheek and departed the Institute. She doubted she'd ever return.

After this harrowing experience, Nora went back to Goodneighbor with Hancock and took more chems than a sane person had any business taking. They danced and sang and screamed, and if she had perhaps even howled at the moon during those two weeks, she didn't give a shit. The only thing she was living for, the one goal she'd kept, had been swallowed up and transformed by the Institute. Lying there on the ancient, dusty mattress, listening to the soft snores of the friend beside her and still tingling from the high of Daytripper, Nora felt her face twitch, felt the skin draw tight as her mouth trembled and eyes burned. A big, fat tear rolled down her cheek, chilling her heated skin, and she wiped it away, the slight grin of inebriation still clinging to her lips despite it all.

She started leaving in the mornings after that, before Hancock woke from their nights of revelry, to scour the ruins of old Boston. She couldn't explain why she felt the need to get up and move, to scavenge and fight while still doped up from the night before, but no one asked, so it didn't matter anyways. She'd go out before the sun rose, start with the first building on the block and work her way down. Some were inhabited, raiders and gunners galore, but she turned it into a game, seeing how many she could kill before she'd have to duck down for a stimpak or flee the building for a while. More often that she'd like, she came back covered in bruises and raider gore, but since her hauls included tons of caps, scrap, and weapons as well, no one seemed terribly put out about it. She'd fight until just after midday, then return to Goodneighbor once the block was free of scum, sell her things, and sleep until the night revelry began again. In this way she cleared out a substantial area around the town, and caravans were made much safer, so no one ever really bothered her about it. After all, she'd been on her own before Nick and Hancock, fighting her way to Diamond City and Goodneighbor in the first place, so it wasn't like she was incapable. Hancock never asked what her deal was, never imposed at all, just kept passing the Jet, Med-X, and liquor, kept holding her hand when she asked, and kept the hell away when she said she didn't want to talk about it. She couldn't have asked for better companionship.

It was a cold, cloudy day when it happened. Rain and rads pelted her body, and she struggled to make it back to Goodneighbor. She'd been wounded on this latest run, a substantial gash on her right thigh hindering mobility, and it took all her effort to keep from falling in the rubble. It wasn't the first time she'd been hurt out there, but it was the first time she really regretted not bringing some support. She was out of stimpaks, nor did she have anything she'd be willing to risk putting on the cut to try to bind it, as all of her things were filthy beyond reckoning. It was getting darker, the radstorm increasing in severity to the point that she couldn't find her bearings, nor could she make out one street from another. She tried remembering the direction she came from, but in the deepening gloom and increasingly severe downpour, it was hard to see further than a few feet ahead. A deafening roar of thunder and brilliant flash flared to life to her right, and when she turned to look, she tripped over something large and soft. A body. The throat was cut, and after a cursory search, she found it. A note with a dripping heart, and on it the same words she'd seen before. _Pickman was here. Find me if you dare._

Feeling reasonably certain that the building inside was empty of its former residents, Nora eased open the door and crept inside. It was dark, old lanterns penetrating the gloom of the buildings. She slunk into the corner and stood, shivering and listening. It was hard, for her breath was coming fast, her every instinct telling her to shake and chatter her teeth, to attempt to warm herself. Her icy fingers clenched into fists as she silently observed. The room itself was devoid of any living occupants, instead playing host to some half dozen dead bodies. They were still warm, still able to be manipulated. They couldn't have been dead very long, and when she looked, there they were, more calling cards. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, for though it was deathly quiet, she couldn't help but feel she was being watched. From upstairs an argument sounded, a man and a woman shrieking at each other, talking about who could only be Pickman, but they did not seem to know she was there.

She took to the stairs, creeping along as quietly as she could, making it to the upper landing without incident. There was a light at the end of the hall, and under it stood a man in leathers and spikes with a stupid post apocalyptic haircut. His knife was at the ready.

"Come out, you cowards!" The man called as Nora removed her gun with shaking fingers. She steadied the sights of her .44 in his direction, bracing an arm against the wall to keep it still, and when the raider looked thoroughly distracted with lighting a cigarette, she fired. Blessedly, the bullet struck true, shattering the raider's skull and splattering brain matter all over the walls around him. Unfortunately, she roused the anger of the other occupants, both of whom stormed out through the half broken door across the hall, heading straight for her. She only had time for one shot before they were on her, and while she'd crippled the woman, the man was unharmed.

"Got ya now, you fucking cunt." He screamed as he ran towards her, a switchblade in his right hand, and before she had a chance to retreat, he was on her. Cut after cut, slice after burning slice, he hacked away, screaming as he did so. "Kill my men, ya little bitch? My men?!" Adrenaline pulsed through her as they fought on the filthy floorboards, her limbs kicking and flailing, hands twitching as they reached for her knife, Pickman's gift to her. Before she made it, before she had a chance to tear out his throat, the raider stabbed his knife into her forearm, ripping a scream from her lips. Blood pulsed out, staining his leathers, coating her fingers. Blood was in her eyes, on her cheeks, sobs ripping from her throat as he twisted the knife. In the struggle she had dislodged his torturous hand, but when he reached to pull out the blade, to take it to her throat, she managed to get her own in him, stabbing him in the side of the neck, watching the light fade from his eyes as surely as it was going to fade from hers. Bright red pulsed from his jugular, filling her mouth as she lay panting. With a shaking hand she reached over, intent to rip the knife from her body. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt, blood squelching against the old leather. From the corner of her eyes she saw the woman, still alive, struggling to crawl towards her. The raider reached down, took out a psycho syringe and stabbed it into her arm. At the same time, 3 more raiders entered from a ladder leading to the roof. Nora struggled in earnest, ripping the knife from her arm with a howl, forcing herself to her feet. Blood slithered down her limbs and pumped out of her arm with each heartbeat, pain pulsing in her joints, and then her knees gave out. What was meant to be a hasty retreat became a tumble down the stairs. Each slam of her body onto her mangled arm drew out another scream, and it seemed that years passed before she reached the bottom.

The raiders were coming down; she could hear the scuffle of their feet on the ancient stairs. The pounding of their heavy boots roared in her ears, and then she heard nothing but screams, saw nothing but blood in her eyes. If she had heard or seen anything else, it would have been a cheerfully hummed song and the graceful swipe of a knife across throats, followed by the staccato of swift stabs, a dagger in the dark that did not relent until their bodies resembled ground meat. Instead the blood continued to leak from her, and she went unconscious just as a soothing voice started to speak and hands that felt blazing hot on her chill skin started pressing against her wounds.


	3. The Nursemaid

He'd not meant to watch her, truly. He'd not meant a lot of things that had happened, but happen they had. After she'd crept into his gallery and dispatched Slab with such voracity (and really, it was an act of grace he'd rarely seen before that day, pouncing on her prey like an animal on the hunt, something he wished he could capture on canvas), he'd given her his blade. He watched from within the walls as she inspected his offerings to her, watched the mix of horror and fascination on her face as she ran her own blood-soaked digits over his note. He thought she'd crumple it up and toss it, but instead she folded the paper and pocketed it before taking the knife and doing the same. That was the end of it, or it should have been. She took what she had earned, and he should have turned and left to clear out the tunnels below. Instead he stayed, watched as she walked around, studied painting after painting. Something about the way she examined them spoke of someone who was experienced with art. She started to reach up, but then she took out a can of purified water and poured it on her hands, cleansing herself of the blood that stained them. Pickman watched with his own fascination as the blood tinged water dripped down to the floorboards, watched reddened skin turn white again, watched her dry her hands on an ancient rag from her pack. All that was mundane, but somehow pleasing to see. Afterwards, after peering around and seeming confident she was alone, the killer reached up and touched the canvas. He supposed he should have been horrified. After all, this was his art. Then again, the look of guarded awe on her face was enough to sooth any anger he might have felt. She did the same thing with a few of his other works, after which she shivered and turned to leave, only to stop and turn in exactly his direction. She couldn't see him, of that he was confident, nor could she hear him, but to see her staring directly his way, he felt exposed. A blush lit her face, something barely noticeable under the blood, and then she was gone, walking with a kind of faux ease, just the slightest bit too fast, body a little too relaxed. She was discomfited, and she had good reason.

After that, he had tried to stay away from her, truly. He wouldn't frighten such a sweet little killer as her, someone who did good work scouring the scum from the streets, but he couldn't deny his interest. He wanted to know her, to see her, and it was much easier than he'd anticipated. After a few months without much other than whispers, he saw her in Goodneighbor. Solitary creature that he was, Pickman still found the need to visit settlements from time to time, for even his prey could not provide for his every need. No one knew his face except for her, so he ducked into the nearest alley, disturbing the blazing high drifters half conscious there. He needn't have bothered, for she was oblivious to him, walking arm-in-arm with the ghoulish mayor Hancock, the two of them staggering drunkenly back to the Old State House. She looked different, a bit thinner, though still not rail-thin like the other occupants of the Commonwealth. More than that was her stance, no longer the careful tread of one unsure of their surroundings, but of one who had nothing left. He knew that walk. That was the way the drifters shifted through the streets, the way the raiders lingered when they weren't raping and stealing. There had been a light, bright and fragile and fiercely hot, and it had been extinguished within her. What was left was a cinder of his killer, still beautiful, still deadly, but without hope, like the outlines of people who died in the bombs, their silhouettes forever on the ancient concrete of old Boston buildings. He wished he'd been able to capture it before it was gone.

Still, in the weeks that followed, he saw a side he liked just as much. He saw her at work, witnessed her deeds firsthand. Block by block, street by street, she cleared out the scum that subsisted there, ravaging the raiders with as much zeal as he had ever possessed. Oh, he did his own work; let no one say that Pickman would sit back and allow another, no matter how cold and beautiful, to take away his job, his passion. He would wake before her, go into the city and slay, and then he would drag back those who weren't quite dead, those she had only wounded (of which there were surprisingly few), take them back to his gallery and work. He slaved away with fervor, trying to capture her exactly as her victims saw it, but as much as they sobbed, as much as they screamed and pleaded around their descriptions, it was never the same. He dipped his brush into their blood, smeared their gore across the canvas, but it didn't do her justice. Any work he did was a pale imitation of her fast justice. His gallery was full of unworthy offerings, but it was the best he could do, and he added more daily, image after image. What his captives saw, what his sacrifices to the arts described, was a monstrosity, a fallacy that he could not accept. A bloodthirsty witch that appeared when they slept and slaughtered them all, then feasted on their flesh. No, it wasn't at all the truth, not his killer. Only he saw the truth, a truth that he tried time and again to proclaim to all. A sea of blood, a tide of red and gore and flesh, and at the center, on the only dry land, his killer, touched by crimson but never consumed by it. She was a tragic figure, trying to cleanse the wastes, trying to restore a long lost past of which nothing remained. She was beautiful, and she was broken, but somehow through it all, she was unsullied.

Then the day came when she tried to fight her way through the cold and the storms, wounded though she was already. He had left his calling cards well away from her until that day, but she had been so lost, so alone, and so wounded that he needed her to know that an ally was near. She did not look as relieved as he'd expected, but soon he was clearing the ground floor of the nearest building, the one she was sure to enter. Like so much of Boston (like his gallery in fact), the walls weren't solid, and he went into the left side, struggling to climb the unkempt pathways, stealthily making his way up to the third floor, slicing the throats of the occupants and lowering their gurgling bodies to the floor. Soon, too soon, the blood pooled onto the floorboards, and as beautiful as that sight always was, the raiders below did not find the trickle through the cracks quite so pleasing. They raised the alarm, starting a brawl of which, though he survived by misdirection and speed, his little killer nearly became a victim. A gut wrenching scream filled the house, and Pickman fought in earnest, taking out any who stood between him and his killer, though he was very nearly too late. The cold had seeped into her flesh, her pleasingly pale skin becoming ghostly, her body trembling from the cold and the blood loss.

He'd fled through the streets faster than he could ever recall moving, her limp body wrapped in his coat, staining it irreparably. She had been disoriented in the storm, otherwise he was sure she wouldn't have ended up so much closer to his gallery than Goodneighbor. He rushed her to his rooms, clean and safe and separate from his gallery, and he mended her as best he could, stopping the bleeding with stitches and stims, administering blood packs, Radaway, and Med-X. After what seemed a long time, she seemed to stabilize, and once he knew she was able to stand it, he took to washing the gore from her. Much of the blood was her own, and he found he did not like the look of blood on her nearly as much as he had before. He stripped her of her armor, tossing it into a heap while tending to her with the greatest care. His killer deserved accolades for her work, but since none would appreciate her appropriately, he would do what he could.

Pickman had washed her thoroughly, even her hair, and then he had dressed her in a very large shirt. Her arm was wrapped in gauze, and every few hours he administered more stims and Med-X. He'd patched himself up enough to know she would survive, that all he'd need do was wait.

That had been two days ago, and after he had finished cleaning up her armor and his rooms, Pickman had a great deal of time to study her. His killer was different, not just in manner but in her features. She had good bone structure, good looks, the kind a person might see in prewar magazines and books. The kind of women who sang on old holotapes about lost loves and gloomy Sundays. The kind that came out of those vaults, all pale and smooth, taller because of adequate nutrition their entire life. More than that, she carried herself, even in fighting, differently from a wastelander. There was grace to her, like a dance. He'd tried not to dwell on it at the time, but later he couldn't help remembering her legs, long and smooth, muscular but feminine, with thick thighs that were just fleshy enough to squeeze (or bite). Her hips were wider than a drifter's, wider than his, and soft. All of her was soft and rounded, no matter how much she fought and jogged throughout the Commonwealth. She was a woman straight from a magazine, fleshy and pretty. A woman who dispassionately danced with Death on a daily basis, who offered up others to her partner with glee, and if she offered him up as well, he wasn't sure that he could find the will to struggle against her. Not when she painted such a pretty picture for him.

He took a hand in his, small, thin, and delicate. The palms had been toughened by necessity, but only recently as far as he could tell. Nails were well manicured, something that women rarely knew how to do in the Commonwealth. Then again, most people were lucky to have all their fingers in the first place. She was a touch frivolous, it seemed.

His old holodeck in the corner changed songs, Gloomy Sunday streaming through the windowless room while Pickman lost himself in the thought of her hands, of showing her the best ways to create art, how to guide pigment across canvas until images bloomed. He imagined them killing together, imagined her flecked with blood (not her own, no, never again her own), posed for him to capture forever in paint, to finally capture that moment, to know her mind and soul in a way the wretched raiders could never comprehend, could never hope to convey to him. So caught up was he in this, that for a few moments he didn't realize his fingers were gradually sweeping the length of her arm, sliding over skin far too smooth and white for this world, and when he looked down and saw this he very nearly pulled away except that he took notice of something he'd perhaps not paid much thought to in the previous days. Tiny bruises, injection sites all along her arm, and all very recent. Some were darkly bruised, some yellowed and fading, but all bearing the same damning evidence of substance abuse. He wasn't shocked at this, not when half the Commonwealth was medicated in some way, but he looked up at her all the same, looked at her unconscious face, now seemingly less at rest than before his revelation. His fingers slid over the marks, and he couldn't help the words that followed.

"Do you want to die, little killer?"

He hadn't expected a reply, much less for his murderess to open her eyes and promptly scream in his face.


	4. Fever Dream

She knew it wasn't real. It couldn't have been real. That didn't mean she wanted to wake up just yet.

At first there was pain and fear, an explosive, consuming amount of both. As she lay there, bleeding out in the dust and grime, with who-the-fuck-knows fighting in the background, she knew she would be dead soon, and at that time she was frightened. With all the horror, all the trauma the Commonwealth provided day to day, she was surpised fear of death still existed inside of her, but there it was. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her lungs were burning carbon, and her muscles were terrible little threads, useless, shredded things incapable of budging. All of her was thoroughly fucked, and all she could hear was the pathetic thud of her pulse in her ear, of a heart that hadn't heard the news that it was fucking finished.

She lay there for so long, waiting to die, hoping against hope that it would happen soon or not at all, and then something burning hot touched her face. She screamed, or tried, but air barely escaped her chest in the first place. Strong arms scooped her up, and she finally, blessedly lost whatever consciousness remained to her.

 _She had just brought Shaun home from the hospital. Nate had been deployed at the time, and she and her own mother were estranged, so it was just Nora and her new little man getting to know one another. She was so afraid, but Shaun had slept well enough for her to get used to it. Then Nate showed up, dusty and worn, so tired but so happy to see them both. He cried, cried like she'd never seen him cry before, kissing Shaun's wrinkled forehead and tiny hands, and she cried too, watching them both. She never wanted it to end. She wrapped her tired arms around his shoulders, looking down at their son, squeezing tighter and tighter as though that would keep him there. He'd end up keeping her up more than Shaun, waking in cold sweats and screaming, reaching for a weapon that didn't exist. He'd apologize, offer to sleep on the couch, but Nora would just smile and kiss him before walking into darkened hallway, intent on going to soothe Shaun._

 _The world shifted, and the room grew larger, filled with people in fancy clothes. Music, old songs that she hadn't heard since-well-, filtered through a bar made hazy by countless smokers, herself included. Snooty drinks in expensive crystal, where everyone went late at night to pretend that they had really "made it" in life, whatever that meant. A man was sitting at the piano, playing with virtuosity as a woman crooned along. People went in and out of focus, a dizzying fever dream, but she thought perhaps she'd had too much to drink. Nora covered her face with her hands for a moment, trying to clear her head._

 _Her face was pressed against his chest. She'd always loved dancing with a man taller than herself, one tall enough to lay her ear against their heart, to hear the slow, steady rhythm of their pulse alongside the music. His chest was broad, and his arms were strong, and she wanted to speak, wanted to say something important, something vital. Instead she closed her eyes and kissed him, and she felt a smile on his lips when he returned it. The song was sad as they swayed, as his hands, long and lean, slipped to her waist and pulled her lasciviously close. Billie Holiday and her "Gloomy Sunday", but Nora didn't care about black coaches of sorrow or white flowers, only his lips on her neck, one hand tangling in her hair, tugging her head back while the other caressed the inside of her arm, sending tremors down her spine, sending arousal straight to her core at the same time that dread hit her belly. The hand in her hair loosened, gentled, cupped her chin and raised it up until she was looking into his eyes, and damn, she couldn't tell if they were grey or blue, but she'd give anything to know. She leaned closer, but the room was dark. His breath was heavy against her wet mouth, and she dove forward, intent of capturing his lips with her, with taking back this moment, and why was he looking at her like that?! She closed her eyes and kissed him, and then he was at her throat, kissing and biting and licking, tearing moans from her vocal chords with practiced ease before he stopped, breath heavy against her wet flesh. She mewled and begged and cajoled, but he wouldn't budge, instead going back to stroking her arm, thumb sliding over one spot, and dread pooled cold in her gut. Billie was going on and on in the background, but she heard him well enough._

 _" Do you want to die, little killer?"_

 _I t all came back. All of it. The bombs, the blood, the gore and death and Nate and Shaun. The fucking Institute and the fucking Brotherhood of Steel, drug addicted ghoul mayors who cosplay as one of the Founding Fathers, Kellogg...murdering Nate just to steal Shaun away. Why? Why was she still here? Why wasn't she dead? And Shaun...Shaun...She didn't want to wake up. Why had she been afraid to die before? What was the point? The real horror was living, after all. Dying was relief. "Do you want to die, little killer?" So she gave the only possible answer._

 _" More than anything in this world." Only, she was alone. Always alone._

She screamed.

She was alive. She'd never felt more disappointed.


	5. An Unfortunately Awakening

Grey. They were grey. Not the cold, calculated grey of steel, verging on darkness, never that. They were the grey clouds of the Pre-war sky just after snow, when the taste of it was on her tongue as she breathed in the cold, crisp air and the blue of the sky started peaking through. It was the color of promise and peace and quiet and _hope_. Hope. It was such tragic bullshit to think that, to think of hope and peace and snowy skies looking at _him_ , but she thought it all the same. She wondered how he'd respond if he knew that's what she was thinking right then, that his eyes were a distant pre-war dream, some pathetic poetic shit if she'd ever heard it. Still, they were beautiful, achingly so, even if they were set in the face of a serial killer with whom she found herself nearly nose to nose upon waking. So intimate was their position that, calm and even as it was, she could feel his breath on her cheek, all the while faintly aware of his hand on her arm, fingers perfectly still though the impression remained that previously he had been inspecting it. It didn't make her skin crawl as it should have, didn't disgust her to know someone had touched her without permission. Instead it brought her attention to said hands, hands that felt long and lean, and like a curious idiot she quickly looked down to see, only to lose what equilibrium she had formerly possessed and start plummeting back against the pillows. Then those artist's hands caught her, eased her back with care before touching her forehead and cheek, only to rise without a word and leave the room. She eyed him only briefly, watched his neatly dressed back disappear through the ancient door and down the darkened hallway before trying to come to terms with her current predicament.

When she thought too hard about it, Nora found herself in a panic trying to remember anything at all beyond her Goodneighbor drug binges. She vaguely recalled leaving in the rain, just as she remembered a bit about the self-same weather becoming laughably worse. Yes. Calling cards in the rain. That had been the whole trouble, hadn't it? She'd found them on some corpses, and she'd gone inside a building. Oh yes, she was supposed to die in there. Why hadn't he let her? Pickman had no particular qualms about dishing out death to any number of other individuals, whether for justice or for his art (she had found so many of his calling cards in the Commonwealth, after all, collected them like macabre baseball cards, stowed away in her backpack with care), so why did he suddenly give thought to keeping her afloat?

The thought brought her pain to the forefront. Pain seemed to dwell in every joint of her body, her throat scratchy and dry, and had she been screaming earlier? She felt she must have been. Her left arm, aside from Pickman's ogling, was unharmed, but her right was a mangled mess. A steady pounding had taken up residence in her temples, and she wished then that she was back in her distractions, her slightly addled state, mind wandering from one curiosity to another, because her own company was an agony. Taking a cautious inventory of her person revealed her right arm dressed in gauze from wrist to elbow, pain radiating from the middle. She remembered the raider twisting his knife, remembered ripping the blade out herself. After a brief hesitation she tried to move her fingers, relieved to find that they did indeed function at all, though each twitch brought a fresh wave of agony and soon caused her to stop altogether. Why hadn't he just left her there? Perhaps he thought he'd been repaying her for previously saving his own outnumbered ass. If so, she'd be sure to correct him of that notion as soon as she was certain her eyes weren't about to explode from their sockets. Her free hand shakily moved up, rubbing at her face, a face still swollen and sore from a beating. Somehow her nose hadn't been broken, but someone had certainly done a number on the rest of her, swollen mouth and cheeks, and were those stitches on her brow? For one insane moment she thought about it, about how she must look, and tears filled her aching eyes before she could stop them.

The door swung open then, minimal footsteps, and she thought it strange that Pickman walked so cautiously even in his own home. He'd surprised her, and she had always considered herself stealthy and perceptive all at once, able to spot someone who moved like herself. Then again, he'd been doing it longer, and presumably at a much higher rate of success. Quickly she tried wiping at her face, pathetic little gesture that it was, but she knew her skin was soaked and slick and horrid, what wasn't purple and swollen now red and blotchy from crying. Still, Pickman said nothing, settling the tray he carried on the table beside them before sitting down and pressing a cup of water to her lips. He was looking her right in the eyes, and Nora found she couldn't maintain such contact with him for very long before feeling that same urge to cry again, so she stared at his forehead and drank quickly, grateful when he finally decided she'd had enough and shifted away, working on prepping some syringe.

"How are you feeling?" he asked conversationally, as if they weren't nearly strangers, as if she had run into him at the market. "Your fever's gone, but I imagine you're probably in a world of pain. Am I right, Killer?" She grimaced a bit at his pet name, but she supposed she'd earned it by this point.

"Yes." she mumbled, or at least attempted to mumble. That single syllable was far harder to say than she'd imagined. The water had helped, but her voice was ragged tatters anyways. She wanted to ask him so much, wanted to rage at him for helping her, wanted to thank him, wanted to ask him where he found his holodeck that was quietly playing in the background, crooning songs that the Commonwealth hadn't heard in 200 years. Instead she lay pliantly as Pickman flicked at the syringe, eyeing her only briefly before injecting her. She watched. How many times had she done it to herself, either to heal or to forget, but she hadn't let anyone else do it since coming out of the freezer. It had felt wrong, a bit of trust she hadn't been able to garner. No matter how many times MacCready had pulled her very injured ass out of the fire or Hancock had passed her the needle with a hazy grin, she always did it herself. She was too tired to think about it, filing it away for later and staring at his lips as they curved into a smile. How could someone like him, someone who lived a dichotomy of art and abhorrence be so pleasing to look at? Whatever he'd used, it was stronger than just garden variety Med-X, already numbing her extremities, her skin tingling before she inevitably closed her eyes and listened to Louis Armstrong's wailing trumpet and gritty vocals. The serial killer at her side was stirring; she heard paper rustling, the scratch of lead, maybe charcoal. She wondered what he was sketching, if it was in the same nightmarish vein of his gallery. How did someone like him exist, anyways? She killed, certainly anyone who lived in these times had to kill to survive, but to find pleasure in it...no, not just that. He reveled in it, that much she knew. His art was a celebration of that revelry, of blood and gore and death, and yet she thought he might have meant it as rebirth, or, what had they called it before the war? Upcycling? Trash to treasure, and all that shit? Maybe that's the way he saw it, just a more barbaric version of turning used coffee filters into lampshades. He was talking, saying something she couldn't understand, but she heard her name, or at least his name for her. Killer. Always Killer. She'd have to tell him her name later, when it didn't hurt to speak, didn't hurt to think. Still, the chems were doing their own good work, her mouth turned up in a hazy, cracked-lipped grin before she sank beneath the weight of them.

When she woke again, she couldn't be sure how long she'd slept. Her eyes and limbs were heavy with the lingering chems, and she was alone. This didn't particularly alarm her, in fact it was a relief. He unnerved her the same as he would unnerve anyone, a predator in a very real sense, no matter that he'd helped her, that he'd dragged her here, wherever here was. She lay there, listening for movement, but there was only the gentle hum of a generator somewhere in the distance. The holodeck had went quiet a long time ago; she wondered how he'd found one so well preserved. Lamps in each corner illuminated the windowless bedroom, and she wondered whether it was day or night, but she had more pressing matters at hand, especially considering her brief bout of privacy. There were two doors, one that had to lead to a hallway, and another she suspected contained a much needed water closet.

As gently as she could, Nora sat up, head spinning all the while, body screaming in tired protest, but she made it, shoving the patchwork blanket aside and swinging her legs off the edge one at a time. Dizzying as it was to move, her mind still in a chem-fog, Nora was half convinced she'd soon wake up in Goodneighbor, Hancock at her side with an empty Jet canister in hand, but then she stood on her own two trembling limbs, stark hot pain shooting up her thigh from her near-forgotten knife wound. Knees buckled, and she immediately began her descent to the floor, catching herself between the bed and the wall. The stitches in her forearm pulled tight, but if they had been ripped out she couldn't say, and in either case she was going to make it across the room. Gritting her teeth she shoved herself back to her feet, hands clinging to the old wall, grasping at the furniture that swirled into her vision. Insignificant a distance as it was, it took an age to arrive, by which time she was certain she'd reopened a wound or two, her ribs singing in protest. Still, she'd managed to make it to the toilet on her own, and that had restored her dignity somewhat.

Afterwards had been the problem, trying to stand again, nearly falling into the bathtub as she staggered around. Instead she'd lost her balance properly right at the sink, doubling over as a wave of nausea accompanied the intense vertigo. She wished she'd passed out in the tub instead, because afterwards Nora started running the water, meaning only to wash her hands and perhaps her face. She thought she knew what to expect, but catching her reflection in the old, cracked mirror was demoralizing in the extreme.

Nora could admit to a small amount of pre-war vanity, and that had mostly gone out the window after a week in the Commonwealth digging through scrap and garbage to survive. Her face had been bruised before, her lip busted, but never had she looked more a victim, seemed more visibly helpless and horrible. Even through the chem haze she felt it, felt the stretch as her mouth twisted into an ugly grimace, felt as her eyes burned with idiotic tears, stupid tears that she couldn't seem to stop. When she couldn't see it, it hadn't felt real, she hadn't felt so _battered_ , but that's what she was, and it was disgusting. Fucking brutalized. She wiped at the tears, and they kept on coming, so she cast her eyes down, taking stock of her injuries and her insufficient wardrobe consisting entirely of an oversized button-down shirt. He'd not even left her underwear behind, though she supposed that after the injuries she'd incurred, most of what she'd worn would have been nearly ruined.

The rest of her, well, that she had expected. Large, irregular bruises littered her body, cuts and gashes, many of which had healed considerably from the stims, and a few broken ribs. Truly, the only things that she needed help with were her arm and leg, wounds that had been stupid and large and potentially fatal. These she had all had before, stupid or large or otherwise, but this was different. She'd never felt so pitiful. She'd been gunning it alone after the Institute, preferred it that way after all the trouble she'd caused everyone to get to that very dead end, but this reminded her that she was not invincible. She knew that already, was glaringly aware of it from one close call after another. Sooner or later, she was going to end up a victim or a monster.

Once she'd cried herself silly, Nora turned off the sink and meandered back into the bedroom, but she had finally exhausted whatever tenuous strength she'd garnered and fell onto the uneven floorboards with a loud grunt and mangled cursing. Blood gathered on her bandages, the gash on her thigh reopened. She tried to care, but her give-a-shit had run dry, so the best she could manage was to drag herself over to a wall and lean against it, watching the blood soak through. That was how Pickman found her soon after, staring at her injuries with a clinical detachment.

"Oh, Killer." Pickman said, sounding amused, "Are you trying to destroy all of my good work?"

She said nothing, only watching as he approached and bent down, scooping her up with practiced ease, though she reasoned that he had ample experience lifting dead weight. She tried not to think about that as he deposited her in the bed and trimmed away her bandages, looking instead at the wound that she had indeed aggravated. She remembered the injury, remembered the raider that had slashed her there before she shot him in the face. It had been deep, and Pickman had sewn it together with neat, tidy stitches that she had managed to rip out. The stims, one of the only things that had improved since the war, had accelerated her healing by a great margin, but her doped up staggering had done little in the way of healing, tearing the wound wide, though thankfully it lacked its former depth, and she hoped he would just remove the stitching and be done with it. Seeing the metal in her skin, no matter how delicately the knots and loops had been crafted, gave her the strangest desire to tear all the little bits from her flesh. Oh, it was horrible, irrational, ravaging her mind as she sat and watched Pickman study her thigh, a thigh that had once caught many an eye as she sidled past. Ah, but she pushed it out of her mind when finally he lifted his hands to work, dexterous fingers confident and calm, injecting Med-X directly at the site before snipping and removing every delicately knotted stitch.

Though it was administered locally, the chems still worked their way through her system, and it wasn't long before she was high as a flag on the 4th of July. She didn't care for Med-X as an everyday high, the drug making her far too loose lipped, and some things she just didn't want to talk about after she sobered up. Hancock had gleefully discovered that early on, asking her how she felt during her first foray into injectable chems only for her to declare earnestly that his voice drove her absolutely crazy, that she thought of his scarred mouth groaning filthy shit against her skin when she touched herself. Why she'd ever say that, no matter how true or false it had been, she never knew, but after that Hancock always offered her the needle with a smile and his ruined lips far too close to her ear.

Nora watched the silver-eyed artist clean out her wound with ancient antiseptic before beginning to stitch it together once more, thankfully with fewer little knots than were first applied. His face, angular with prominent cheekbones, gave away nothing. His bowed lips seemed to have been created to hold a permanent little smile, the fullness of them along with the drama of his very masculine jawline with the hint of a 5 O'clock shadow making quite the impression. Did he keep some pretty unsuspecting girl around in a settlement somewhere, some drop dead gorgeous Diamond City bitch to fuck when the need arose? He'd surely have no problems finding a willing woman, and it's not like anyone there would be overly suspicious of a clean cut individual with looks like a pre-war actor. She wondered what he thought of when he wasn't working. What kept him going? What made him want to live in a place like this, a world like this? What drove him to disembowel raiders and hang their innards around the alley like Christmas decorations? These questions got her nowhere, and they didn't matter. She glanced down at his hands as they worked, able to ignore that the meat he tended was hers, and she focused instead on his dexterity. Oh. She remembered losing herself to hands like those, lithe and lean and strong and so very obviously male. Beautiful instruments that did God's work and the Devil's in equal measure. Was he always alone? Was he lonely? She was very rarely by herself, yet she couldn't deny a deep, abiding loneliness that threatened to swallow her up no matter who she surrounded herself with.

No. That was too introspective, too dark and sad, so back to his hands she went. They were steady beyond reason as he worked on her wounds. Were they steady when he killed his raiders and made his art? She imagined his long fingers trailing across the canvas with such calm and purpose, no matter the carnage in front of him. When did he lose his composure? What made a man like him tremble? Would his fingers still stay cool and calm as a surgeon's if he dragged them over the canvas of her flesh, streaking her with blood and paint and desire? Her head started spinning as Pickman chuckled, and she closed her eyes, the sound washing over her.

"Are you always this talkative when you're under the influence?" she could hear the humor in his voice, and when she opened her eyes to look, he was staring at her, a wide smile on his face that she couldn't quite understand. She started to answer, trying to come up with some smartass remark, but her throat was dry and scratchy as if she'd been talking a great deal already. She flushed and looked away, tried gingerly to pull her limbs closer together, quite intent on dying of shame upon realizing her hazy mistake, but Pickman gripped her leg and held it still until she stopped resisting.

He wound gauze around her thigh, tying it off neatly before moving on to her arm and tending it in silence. It was fine despite her best efforts, so he cleaned it and applied fresh bandages with clinical care. When it was finished he rose, collecting his various instruments and storing them methodically before placing a different tray before her and going to his lone chair across the room, taking up his sketch pad once more.

She watched him as she slowly chewed the Blamco mac-n-cheese and Cram that came along with it. It took a while, every movement of her jaw making her entire face ache, but she couldn't deny feeling better by the end it, her full stomach helping to combat the high she had been clinging to. Pickman just sat in his chair across from her, the holodeck playing songs nearly lost to decay as he took up his sketchbook.

"Pickman," Nora started as something truly old played in the background, "I-" she very nearly thanked him, but then she remembered how she wished he hadn't done any saving in the first place, and instead she looked around, looked down at her hands rather than at his expectant expression. She had his full attention, and she felt like a battered fool, so she blurted out the first thing she could think of. "Where'd you get the music? I haven't heard Sophie Tucker since I was a kid." This surprised her nursemaid, and he looked at the holodeck thoughtfully.

"Here and there. A person can find most anything in the ruins if they're dedicated enough. Some of it the raiders carry, and I make use of what I can." Ah, yes. The thrifty serial killer.

The stifling silence returned, and Nora was about to resign herself to sleeping again when PIckman brought a box of holotapes over for her inspection. It was staggering, surely something that Travis in Diamond City would have killed over. Certainly it put to shame the small collection of songs he played on the radio ad nauseum. She sifted through the box, lingering on several old standards that she had assumed were lost to time, a smile on her cracked lips all the while. As she flipped through the old box, PIckman popped another tape into the holodeck, settling himself across from her to once more take up his sketches, content that she had something to occupy herself. Unfortunately for Nora, Pickman had the worst taste she'd ever encountered.

As the words drifted through the air, slightly crackled the way old recordings were, Nora found herself briefly transported. Her aching heart clenched at each word, Billie Holliday mewling about love and loss and heartache. Good morning heartache, and so on. She knew that next would be something happy and loving, feeling happy as a queen, and sure enough it clicked over, "The Very Thought of You" playing so sweetly. She wasn't in the wasteland anymore, no. She was with Nate, when they first moved in together, their first apartment after getting married. No furniture, no dishes, just the two of them dancing to the songs on the radio, love-drunk and grinning like idiots. Nate's wine-sweet breath lingered at her ear, singing along with the music, drawing out laughter from her lips as they spun around the living room. She knew which song would play next, knew it would just stir up more memories. Less than a minute into the next old standard, she was panting shakily, eyes burning and hands clenched into the blanket.

"P-please, Pickman." her chest ached as she spoke, "Please turn it off." She didn't look up, couldn't stand the thought of meeting his gaze, but he obeyed, quietly removing the tape without complaint.

The silence that followed was deafening, but it was broken, punctuated by the low keening in her throat, the inevitable sobs that shook her shoulders. If she hadn't been so physically weak, Nora would have rose from the bed and fled the room, would have done anything to be alone. As it was though, she wept bitterly in front of her audience, and she'd never felt so naked. No matter that he was being discreet about it, she knew he was watching, was studying her anguish. This man knew sorrow better than most, having caused a great deal of it himself. Perhaps he was only watching so that he could better understand his victims later on, all the better to know how being broken looked.

"Jesus, Pickman." she finally moaned, her voice raw and head throbbing, hands clawed in her hair. "I-I can't take anymore. I need something. Chems, alcohol, just-just anything. I can't. I can't. Oh, God, I can't. I should be dead. I should be dead." Coughs punctuated her pleas, jarred her with the pain they produced in her ribs, every bruise, each cut throbbing and screaming for relief. She was lost to her pain, so it surprised her greatly when she felt the familiar burn of Med-X in her arm, followed by a more deliberately applied stimpak once she had eased down into the bed, her body numb and limp and sluggish. Her mind wasn't far behind, but she was clinging to consciousness to see him, to see Pickman watching her. He seemed slightly troubled.

"Hey." she slurred, hand reaching out, touching his flawless face, feeling the warmth of his skin, the stubble under her palm, "Pickman. H-hold my hand, would you?" He reciprocated, taking her hand from his face, twining her fingers with his own, the feeling more bizarre than he expected. He wasn't one for hand holding or comforting crying women. Still, she didn't seem to noticed, her drugged eyes staring at him under drooping lids. She squeezed in what she thought must have been a very firm grip, but in truth he barely felt it. Still she enjoyed the dry warmth of his hands. "Thank you, Pickman, for being here."

"Don't mention it, Killer." He replied awkwardly, unable to recall a more uncomfortable experience in recent memory. She didn't seem to notice his awkwardness as she traced her fingers clumsily over the lines of his palms, up his arm and back down again.

"It's Nora." she murmured, and she grew still, grew quiet, her breath evening out as she seemed to drift into sleep. He sat for a while, waiting for her to stir. Once he was satisfied that she was out he started to move away, but she clenched his hand once more. "Please. Don't go. Don't leave me." Nora paused for a moment before continuing. "W-why did you save me? I was trying to die out there. Couldn't you see that?" He started to move away again, but again she stopped him. "No! If you won't kill me, then don't leave me alone. I can't. I can't stand it anymore. Please. Not in this world." Tears leaked down her cheeks, but she was not hysterical anymore, the chems doing their job.

"Get some sleep, Nora." Pickman replied. "I'll be here." He fiddled with her hand, unsure how to respond for a moment before shrugging of that worry. She was so hopped up on chems that she'd likely not remember anything he'd say, so he had little problem telling her the truth. "This world is more beautiful with you in it." It was enough, at any rate, because he doubted he'd admit to anyone, even himself, why he'd done it. He scarce understood it, but in the end it didn't matter. His killer with a death wish was asleep.


	6. Sailing Over a Cardboard Sea

For Nora, it happened slowly.

After her little outburst wherein she poured out her sorrows to her serial killer nurse, she'd been silent and somber in the extreme, responding to his inquiries with a nod or a shake and little else. If he was annoyed by this he didn't state as much, tending her wounds with clinical efficiency. Without a word he offered her books or music or food before going back to his sketches or disappearing entirely and giving her the solitude she so obviously wanted.

Still, no matter the general disgust with her life of late, her eyes still followed him, the vague ghost of interest as he left the room. The slightest twinge she felt upon his return.

She took to watching him when he worked. First with his sketches, eyes locked on the yellowing paper, hands flying frantically across his art, birthing whatever creation his mind could conjure up. He was transported when he worked, serene but focused and very nearly immune to any outside interference. Sometimes he would hum tunes both familiar and foreign, slow and careful in his movements, other times hectic and feverish and without pause. The walls of her sickroom (his bedroom, as she eventually learned) were soon covered sketches both horrifying and mundane. She saw herself on more than a few of them, always whole and hearty. The gleam that he was capable of sketching in her eyes bothered her for its current absence. When had he had a chance to glimpse such resolve from her?

At first she noticed his eyes. They were intense in their study, never a casual glance to be had. If he asked after her health or wellbeing, no one could have ever said he was making idle conversation, not when his eyes focused solely on her. Sometimes it felt as though the world could have been crashing down around them before his attention could be drawn elsewhere. It wasn't just with her, either. No, he paid the same amount of detail to his work, never shying away from it, no half measures to be had. In vain she tried to remember the last time she'd been so focused. When she'd found Shaun again she could barely stomach looking at him. Mother of the year.

When he tended her wounds, she became enamored of his hands. Long and lean and dextrous, disarmingly delicate in their work. To be touched by another person in this new life was something she had not allowed except in the direst of circumstances, and here he was with his clinician's touch, tending to her as though he did this every day. First to remove the stitches that marred her face, then later with her arm and leg. It was nerve racking, terrifying to a person who had always hated hospitals, but it was almost worth it when he brought those same hands up to delicately trace the thin scars that remained. It surprised her that she leaned into that touch, and even more so that she missed it for its absence.

He'd weened her off the chems, something she hadn't asked for and resented greatly, but he did it all the same. At the same time he wormed his way into her mind, offering her bits of trivia about his life in passing. So subtle and simple, as unimportant as his taste in clothing, but enough to draw the conversation out of her. From the beginning she had intended to suffer in silence, but Nora found it increasingly difficult to maintain the necessary facade, laughing at the absurdity of his ideas about the Pre-War over food and booze. As she regained her strength he would help her around his quarters, supporting her weight as she worked her muscles, and while they labored he would calmly dictate scenarios he had been party to, whether mundane or grisly. She found that she did not mind the gruesome as much as she'd suspected, glossing over the gore for the story he told underneath. All of his stories were either about art or survival at their core, and he obviously had a deep appreciation for both. Nevermind that he slaughtered raiders indiscriminately; it was unnecessary to the story at large, which was at its core a tale of joie de vivre. It was so obvious that he enjoyed his life, that he reveled in every little part of it, and somehow she envied him that. He reminded her of what life was before, that it could be about more than survival, and she resented the hell out of him for it.

Gradually she let him in.

At first it was a private affair, something she kept close to her chest for fear it would bite her in the ass. Those fears were not unfounded after all. He was taking excellent care of her, but she had to remind herself that one of his chief interests was literally collecting heads. If he never knew that she had begun looking forward to their conversation, to their short walks, to his hands on her for support, then Nora would consider herself lucky. Still, with each day she grew stronger, required him less and less, and she found herself wishing that time would slow down for just a while. It was a pain to admit that she desired his company, so she didn't. She did, however, find excuses to keep him around, asking about his sketches or if he'd ever read a certain book. Anything to hear the gentle and even tone of his voice, to see his perfect lips move as he articulated what he liked best about a novel or a comic. To listen to him as he hummed while working, absentmindedly singing lines from his favorite song, "It's Only a Paper Moon", a little off-key. It was endearing.

Where else could it have gone from there? She should have expected things to change, should have felt it when grasping his hand for balance and continuing to hold it far longer than necessary. Should have smelled it in the food he cooked for her, or heard it in the stories he told. Should have known it when the longing she had been without for such a time came down on her full force. She didn't notice it, didn't acknowledge until it was too late. The quickening of her heartbeat meant nothing, the jolt of excitement she felt when he smiled immaterial in its foolishness.

It wasn't until she woke in the night, hand rubbing furiously at her core, that Nora admitted she had a problem.


	7. An Angel of Vengeance

For Pickman it had been immediate, a burst of lightning as she cut down his foes, blood splattering so charmingly across her pale cheeks. The months of pain and sorrow that she had undoubtedly endured had for him been an expanse of longing. Longing to see her again, to speak with the avenging angel that had descended into his hellscape and flew away again with ease. He longed to guide her hands in bloodshed and vengeance and paint. He would wax poet at the thought of touching her, even the slightest graze of fingers, when he couldn't have been worthy to touch the hem of her garment. For months he had been consumed with the desire to bathe in her glow only to find her fire all but extinguished.

She was quiet, docile, and without spirit. After her initial outburst she'd been as pliant as a doll, bending to his will in all things without complaint and, for the most part, without words. He only tended her wounds, but the thought of someone else finding her out there, of raiders having dominion over her or anyone else with less virtuous things in mind sickened him. His Killer was better than this world, rising about it in her grace, and others would not ruin that for her. Except…

Except that someone already had. He saw it in the drawn expression she wore even in sleep, or in the hunched shaking of chem withdrawal. Hancock was a decent ghoul in many ways, but his chem habit had bled over into her in a way that would soon be irreparable. A bit of mislabeled addictol did her a world of good in that regard, but it went deeper. It was more than the worries of the wastes or the siren song of chems. The drifters didn't bear that look of resignation, nor did they share in her grim fatality that flared when she threw herself into battle, ignorant of the wounds she sustained until everyone around her was dead. She had been scarred by something out there, her mind attacked by something she couldn't destroy.

It took time for her to forgive him, but he thought that she must have as she slowly started making eye contact and engaging in minute conversation. He gave her whatever she asked for, be it food or books or solitude, and the words she whispered in thanks were sweet for their rarity. She was possessed of a good voice with a soothing, clear tone, and when she chose to speak it was a gift that quieted his own rapid thoughts and desires for bloodletting.

While she might not have been the best conversationalist as his patient, Pickman savored her nearness nevertheless, sketching with feverish intensity while he was able to see her up close. She saw a handful of his drawings, much removed from the gore of his paintings, and what she studied at length he would attach to the walls. She even had a portrait of himself, something she had specifically requested. It was foolish and a bit embarrassing the way he fell all over himself in attempts to please her or coax out some semblance of a smile. It would have wrecked the fearsome image he had cultivated with raiders, but he couldn't find it in him to stop. Even when his art had suffered for it, wrist deep as he was in raider blood and unable to continue with his latest work, Pickman couldn't find it in him to mind, instead scrubbing rapidly and meticulously before hurrying back to her bedside.

The days passed faster than he'd have liked, but she was improving to the point that she no longer needed his help for walking, at least not short distances. Her strength had yet to fully return, but soon Nora would be well enough to leave, and this bothered Pickman more than he liked to admit. As she healed they had built up a rapport, slowly revealing bits of themselves as they talked. Minor amusements and irrational dislikes, that sort of thing, but the ease with which she lowered her guard around him had the artist wanting more. She didn't speak like a wastelander, nor did she really seem like a vault dweller, though she most certainly was that. When finally he could stand it no longer and dared to mention her oddness, Nora laughed, and it was intoxicating. He didn't often hear laughter, and had never witnessed it tumbling from _her_ lips.

Of course it didn't last long, her smile turning to tears as she recounted a story he wouldn't have believed from anyone else. Cryogenic freezing, teleportation, her son the evil mastermind of the Institute, and her in the middle, approached by every major faction of the Commonwealth for one purpose or another. No wonder she'd turned to chems and rage. He had tried to think of something to say, some reply to her heart-wrenching confession, but all he managed was a quiet apology followed by an awkward silence before she changed the subject altogether.

It was days later that things became truly awkward, the vault dweller writhing in her sleep while he sketched, an intense expression on her face. At first it seemed a nightmare, and he thought to wake her, unwilling for her to be trapped with her demons. When he drew close, however, he noticed his mistake immediately. Her hands were not clenching the sheets in fear, but rather roaming under the absurdly thin veil, touching herself in ways that set his blood boiling. Her lips were parted slightly, and he swore that she had murmured his name as she worked herself, prompting him to flee the room as quickly and quietly as he could.

That same night had him scouring the streets of Boston in search of raiders, although he would take whatever manner of distraction presented itself. Anything to keep him from storming back in, shaking her awake and working out their frustrations together. How he wanted her, needed to offer himself to her in whatever manner she saw fit. If she asked it of him, he would gladly have become her victim in any capacity. Lay his wrists open for her amusement? Certainly. And it wasn't just that she was lovely. No, it was deeper than that, a purity of spirit, kindness tempered with bloodletting, an Angel of Vengeance, all wrapped up in one of the most capable people he'd ever met.

As much as he tried to find a diversion, Pickman came up empty-handed. The two of them had cleansed the alleys and ruins well enough that they would probably remain vacant for quite a while. Just when he had resigned himself to a night of frustration and insomnia, Pickman turned the corner and came face to face with a mayor and a detective. Even if it weren't the dead of night, he was rendered a ghost by the intensity with which the two discussed their next course of action. In truth it was alarming that Nora spent so much time with either one of them, as inattentive as they were to potential threats. They were one well placed landmine away from painting the streets with their innards.

"What I can't get out of my circuits is why you let the dame wander off in the first place. Kid's been through hell and then some, not to mention all the chems-"

"Let her? Nick, you know that ain't my style. People are free to live their lives. And you know as well as I do that telling Nora what's best works as well as saddling up a deathclaw and trying to ride it around the Commonwealth." The ghoul rubbed at the back of his neck thoughtfully, "Truth be told, I don't know how she even managed to stagger out into the streets, as hard as she was hitting the Jet. That sister's tough, I'll give her that."

"Yeah, and she's at her breaking point, Hancock. She could be laying in a ditch somewhere for all we know." The Detective stomped out his cigarette and the two went back to arguing.

As amusing as it was to see the two of them bickering, it did leave Pickman in 0u, something of a predicament. He could just reveal himself to Nora's companions and escort them to her, but he couldn't be sure that they wouldn't kill him on sight, or attempt to at least. If they checked their fire long enough to believe him, leading them to his home was unacceptable as well. The two turned back in the direction of Goodneighbor, so Pickman made haste back to his own home, snaking through the tunnels and rigging the safeguards behind him in his wake. As open to the public as he kept the gallery, it provided little in the way of security. His pieces for the gallery floor were kept there, certainly, not to mention his workroom floor, but rest and relaxation required more fitting accommodations. Nora was the only person he'd ever brought down into the bowels of his home, and even then she'd been unconscious, close to death, and in no condition to take notes.

At this point all he wanted was to cast her from his mind, as far away as possible, or else take himself in hand and be done with his wanting. He wanted to wrest himself from the obsession in which he was drowning and get back to some semblance of sanity however he could manage it. So naturally she was waiting for him upon his return, looking lovelier than anyone had a right to look in his oversized castoffs, shapely legs on display as she lounged on the settee.


End file.
